


Catch Me When I Fall

by sunsetmondays



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, but mostly in terms of metaphor, i haven't writen in over 2 years i'm only capable of metaphor okay, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28711425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmondays/pseuds/sunsetmondays
Summary: "How do you do it?" he asks as if the rest were self-evident."Do what?" Dream replies."Take such big risks. You know, jump without fear and catch yourself without even looking. It's like- It's like you never see the abyss before you, or like you don't know the consequences of slipping and missing. What happens if you fall and don't make it? Aren't you scared of the bottom?"Dream pauses and ponders. George twists clumps of yellowy grass between his fingers, barely aware that he's holding his breath."I don't know," Dream concludes.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Catch Me When I Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eldritch_blaaast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldritch_blaaast/gifts).



> This was 100% inspired by this post here: https://gogysglasses.tumblr.com/post/639878797396738049/please-someone-who-can-actually-write-please. It's not 100% what was requested but Pleiades, this is for you.
> 
> Also like the tags say I literally haven't written anything in over 2 years also this is my first post for this fandom please be kind.
> 
> If you like this, my writing blog is https://sunsetwrites.tumblr.com/ and my personal blog is https://unofficial-cactus.tumblr.com/  
> I've turned into a dnf simp sue me. I hope you enjoy I'm a slut for your comments they motivate me to work on the other ideas I've got.

When George dreams he dreams of falling. Muddy grey walls and hot steam rising, thick air pressing into his lungs, and eternal unending. No calm, no peace, just amaranth-tinged fear circling in the emptiness as he waits for the bottom to come. Yet day after day, second after second, it never does. When he wakes, he remembers the precipice. He remembers the emptiness of the cliff-face opposing, the way his muscles stretch and pull as he leaps without abandon, unable to hold back no matter how hard he screams, begs, pleads. Even in waking the dream is unending, the morning too. He stares without end into the mirror—brown eyes, grey face—wondering what it would be like to really leap with such reckless abandon but this time with the knowledge that he will catch himself as he falls.

Today they play another of Dream's challenges. They take the rules of the world around them and bend them to their will. It's fun, it's frightening, it's powerful to be whatever they want to be, and today they move as one. _Siamese twins_ , they call it. George plays the arms and Dream the legs. George feels the exhilaration of moving in synch; the way years of friendship bond their wills to the same wavelength. And yet at times his mind wanders, thoughts adrift in the ease of their play.

They reach the bubbling heat of the nether and George's pulse quickens. Here is where Dream's nimbleness and sharp-wits really show their strength. He skips across treetops just past the portal, placing blocks breaths of a second before he lands soft and swift, all too soon leaping again.

" _Dream!_ " George berates, half laughing as Dream skates them to the very edge of a cliff. George looks down to the fiery depths below. The laugh hides how his tongue sits dry and heavy in his throat.

Dream steps back, charges, and jumps.

Then they're falling, falling, falling. In his dream it doesn't stop. He reaches out, fingers clutching at air instead of cliff just out of reach. Too far, too slow. This time he will hit the bottom and the earth will swallow him whole.

The falling stops.

Mere metres from the top, Dream has caught them on a self-made ledge.

" _Dream!_ " he chides again, breathless, giddy. The quiet awed, ' _how do you that?'_ is thought, not said.

The game continues and eventually comes to an end but the thought still lingers: the way Dream charges head-first into action with suave and confidence. He jumps, he leaps, he doesn't even blink. And every time, without hesitations, he catches himself when he falls. George's gut gurgles with envy (and a quiet longing admiration too). Again when he sleeps he dreams of falling. He falls and he falls and he falls. When he remembers the leap as the sun comes to dawn—the cliff-face and the abyss—Dream watches him from the other side, green eyes unblinking.

Days and nights and days pass on end. At the end of every day George's dream never changes. Not once since Dream came to watch. He never moves, he never speaks, he just stares across the abyss at George who leaps again and again and again with purpose. Every time, his sprint is too slow, his jump too weak, and Dream and the cliff-face remain just out of reach.

One day as they're lying in the grass, sun kissing their toes and their smiles with the ease of a lazy afternoon, George sits up with a question perched upon his lips. "How do you do it?" he asks as if the rest were self-evident.

"Do what?" Dream replies.

"Take such big risks. You know, jump without fear and catch yourself without even looking. It's like- It's like you never see the abyss before you, or like you don't know the consequences of slipping and missing. What happens if you fall and don't make it? Aren't you scared of the bottom?"

Dream pauses and ponders. George twists clumps of yellowy grass between his fingers, barely aware that he's holding his breath.

"I don't know," Dream concludes.

"You don't... know?" says George. He pulls up those clumps of grass and throws them in their air. "What do you mean you don't know!?"

Dream rolls over and props his chin up on his elbows. "I just... don't know," he says with a shrug. "I just jump and it happens. Maybe I just don't think about it. If I fall, I fall. Being too afraid of that won't stop me from trying."

"You're unbelievable," George huffs. "How can you just-" _be so brave_. "It's unfair!"

"It's not so bad, George. Try it sometime, make the jump. See where it takes you." Dream looks up at George with an easy smile. Strands of grass stick between tufts of sandy hair and his olive-green eyes glitter with mischief.

Briefly, George wonders if there's more to Dream's gentle words of encouragement, then the breeze flutters and sends a few loose grass strands from atop Dream's head swirling through the air. George blinks, laughs, and alongside the grass, his wonderings are gently carried away.

Weeks pass and that thought and George's question are long left behind. The day shimmers with warmth and the frenzied excitement of friends together whiling away the day with jovial teasing and games. Like always, George and Dream are caught in the midst of a delicate dance between teasing, berating, and jokingly flirting. It's a game, something all friends do. There's comfort in the exchange of flowers and blows and " _Dream!_ " and " _George!_ ". George thinks not of falling, nor of deep olive eyes, nor of soft pretty lips. Any more would step beyond the easy and the known, out into the abyss. In the waking world he has control. He sees the cliff, he doesn't jump. The games, the light-hearted teasing are his solid ground—an illusion to hide the depths below.

 _"Ooh, you wanna kiss me so bad_ ," says Dream. Normally, this kind of baiting never brings George to pause. The words tug at him like the call of the abyss. His feet, by all rights, should stay planted where they normally do. Yet a memory flickers past his subconscious. ' _If I fall, I fall_ ,' Dream had said. ' _Make the jump. See where it takes you._ ' The words shouldn't stick, yet for some inexplicable reason they do. George thinks of olive eyes and grass blades and years and years of best friends but never more.

He stares out at the cliff, eyes gliding over the abyss, sees Dream at the other side. He readies, muscles tensing, and eyes wide open he makes the leap. " _And what if I do?_ "

Wind rushes past him, falling, falling, falling, as he reaches out to the other side. The world stops around them, the cliff-face so close, almost. He's not going to make it. He can already feel the heat rising and muddy grey clouding in upon his vision. Then Dream is reaching out, grabs him hard by the wrist, and pulls him in crashing to the other side. The world starts again with a flicker as George stands there breathless.

"I-" Dream begins, standing taught as if his own world has just come crashing down. His voice is small and shaky when the question tumbles from his lips, "Do you really mean that?"

George scrutinizes the wide gaze of Dream's piercing olive eyes, and from the safety of the other side he sees the truth come falling out. "I do," he admits with the tiniest of a smile, safe warm and happy with the realisation that this entire time dream had been falling to.

~ ~ ~


End file.
